Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

On the arms issues, the only report is that the totality of the arms have been given up. This was confirmed to me when I met General John de Chastelain and his colleagues last week. There are no other arms and that is the position. No understandings exist on the part of anyone about any arms being held back. I have no information on the source of that assertion. It was certainly not General John de Chastelain, the decommissioning body or the two Governments.

On the question of the Colombia three, the Government has received a request for their extradition. As I stated in my reply, it will go through the process of both a Garda investigation and a DPP investigation.

Regarding the Rafferty case, I raised this at the last meeting with Sinn Féin, which was attended by the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, Deputy McDowell, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Dermot Ahern, and quite a large number of officials. Consequently, there are several records of those meetings. As I have stated previously, when I meet people from Northern Ireland, I do not distinguish between meetings that are official or unofficial. However, if matters of note transpire, they are noted. Whether I am there alone or otherwise, I always relay them.

In this House, there is a lack of understanding on the part of some Members which I understand, as they have never been involved in such situations. People from Northern Ireland regularly come to me as Taoiseach — as they did to previous Taoisigh and Tánaistes — to have meeting to which they would not come with officials. That has been their practice. It is simply the way they are and the Deputy has to accept that. If anything is raised, I pass it on. It should not be read in any other way. There will be a meeting with officials at the next meeting because we must go through a number of items. The Rafferty family has asked me to raise some of these issues again and I will do so. They believe that Sinn Féin could be helpful in getting a prosecution.

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